Business analytics – the art and science of advanced statistical analysis popularized by the movie Moneyball and the bestselling book, Competing on Analytics: The New Science of Winning – is a tool increasingly used by businesses looking to gain a competitive edge.

Murat Kristal

“The Schulich Master of Science in Business Analytics will fast-track students with a background in engineering, computer science or math to leverage their skill sets for business,” says Murat Kristal, program director of Schulich's Master of Science in Business Analytics and a professor of Operations Management & Information Systems.

Ninety-seven per cent of companies with revenues of more of $100 million are now entering this new frontier, according to Bloomberg Businessweek. Business analytics is also the fastest growing category of global IT software expenditure, according to a recent Forrester Research study, and a McKinsey & Company report forecasts a shortage of professionals in the field of business analytics by 2018.

“Business analytics is one of the most sought-after skill sets in the business world right now. It’s the new business frontier,” says Schulich alumnus Babar Chaudhry, vice-president, financial planning, marketing analytics & strategy at a major Canadian international bank. “Companies are capturing vast amounts of data on their customers, products and the environment, but they need more highly trained professionals to analyze and identify patterns and trends for value creation; value creation for their customers as well as their shareholders.”

Schulich’s intensive program will combine mathematical and statistical study with instruction in advanced computational and data analysis to ferret out the data that drives decision-making in business. During the final semester, students will be embedded within business operations to work on real-world, real-time data analysis projects.

Business analytics students will learn to identify patterns and trends; interpret and gain insight from vast quantities of structured and unstructured data; and communicate their findings in practical, useful terms, says Kristal.

Students will emerge from Schulich’s Master of Science in Business Analytics program with skills in forecasting, business intelligence and data mining, and optimization and simulation. Graduates will be qualified to apply for a wide variety of career positions as managers, consultants and analysts in the fields of strategy, research, marketing and sales.

For more information, visit the Schulish School of Business’ website or contact Schulich School of Business Professor Murat Kristal, program director of the Master of Science in Business Analytics, at ext. 44593 or mkristal@schulich.yorku.ca.

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Anton Tabuns (MES/JD '11), now an articling student at Willms & Shier Environmental Lawyers, discussed his major research paper on community-based renewable power and how it could be established in Ontario. He looked at three European examples and investigated how a feed-in tariff system could foster the development of renewable energy and community power projects in this province.  In contrast to public or privately owned power plants, community power refers to renewable energy installations that are completely or partially owned and controlled by residents.

Right: From left,  Ian Rice, Faculty of Environmental Studies Dean Barbara Rahder, Mark Winfield, Anton Tabuns and Sarah Martin at the conclusion of the 2011-2012 Sustainable Energy Initiative seminar series

He also made several recommendations on how Ontario’s energy system could be amended to promote investment for renewable energy projects. Tax deductions, curtailing the province’s dependence on nuclear energy and public education/awareness campaigns for renewable energy were strategies he encouraged.

Tabuns was one of several alumni from 91��ɫ’s master in environmental studies (MES) program who presented research to students, faculty and industry professionals.  The 2011- 2012 Sustainable Energy Initiative seminar series drew to a close with a showcase of the best of student and faculty accomplishments in recent sustainable energy research.

The seminar series kicked off in September with Harry Lehmann, setting the bar high as the SEI inaugural keynote speaker. Presenters for the remainder of the season did not disappoint, as the SEI delivered a of monthly seminars, discussing relevant and timely issues in a rapidly developing field.

At the final SEI seminar, Sarah Martin (right) (MES '11) also discussed her research from her MES degree, along with internship experiences at the World Wind Energy Association (WWEA) and World Resources Institute (WRI). Her major paper examined the case for community power projects, applying her own sustainability assessment criteria to assess Ontario’s history with community power. In her Bonn, Germany internship as a WWEA working group coordinator, Martin spoke directly with those involved in community power projects around the world. She learned about the successes and challenges of newly implemented programs in Japan, Australia, South Africa and India.

Martin laid out specific recommendations for India’s energy policies, which resulted from her internship research. Recommendations included consumer rebates and education programs on energy efficient appliances, tax deductions for business-sector energy audits and consumer awareness on the negative effects of coal as an energy source. Martin currently works as a research assistant with WRI’s Electricity Governance Initiative, where she continues to evaluate electricity policies in developing countries.

Ian Rice (MES '11), a policy analyst at the Environmental Commissioner of Ontario’s (ECO) office, also presented at the seminar. His major paper focused on a cap-and-trade system in Ontario – a program involving partnerships with several other provinces and US states under the auspices of the Western Climate Initiative.

Left: MES student Sindy Singh was one of several students at the event to learn about recent student and faculty research in sustainable energy

Rice suggested that while it is likely that current policies in Ontario will help it achieve the 2014 target of reducing greenhouse gases to six per cent below levels in 1990, the longer term goal of decarbonizing the economy is unlikely to be achieved without renewed policy effort. According to Rice, this effort should consist of a new Climate Change Action Plan focused on four key tenets: economy-wide carbon pricing; infrastructure investment; public support for research and development; and aggressive regulatory standards to reduce energy demand.

91��ɫ Faculty of Environmental Studies Professor Mark Winfield concluded the seminar, discussing his new book , which examines the evolving relationship between environmental and economic policy in Canada’s largest province. Winfield also discussed the current political climate. He noted parallels between the current federal government’s approach to environmental issues, and those seen during the “Common Sense Revolution” period from 1995 to 1999 in Ontario.

“In both cases, the governments involved have regarded the environment as unimportant, and as an area where major budgetary reductions and ‘streamlinings’ of regulatory frameworks can take place without serious consequences,” Winfield said. “Both governments have tended to be repeatedly blindsided by environmental issues as a result.” Winfield stated this to be a factor in the 2003 provincial defeat of the Progressive Conservative government and he further cautioned “it remains to be seen how the same dynamics will play out at the federal level.”

With the conclusion of its 2011-2012 seminar series, SEI is hard at work assembling a lineup for 2012-2013 to present additional issues at the forefront of sustainable energy research and development.

For future events and updates, visit the Sustainable Energy Initiative website.

Submitted by Imelda Nurwisah, FES communications graduate assistant

Republished courtesy of YFile– 91��ɫ’s daily e-bulletin.

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Where have all the girls gone? That’s what 91��ɫ Professor Sharada Srinivasan examines in her new book, Daughter Deficit: Sex Selection in Tamil Nadu, about the elimination of daughters in India through sex selection, female infanticide and neglect.

It is neither an aberration nor an idiosyncrasy. It accounts for a large proportion of missing girls in India, says Srinivasan, so much so that the proportion of boys to girls in the zero to six age group is 1,000 to 826.

Daughter Deficit (Women Unlimited) will launch Wednesday, March 7, from 2:30 to 4:30pm, in the Senior Common Room, 010 Vanier College, Keele campus. Everyone is welcome to attend and light refreshments will be provided.

The book explores the issue of girls who are denied the right to live or to be born in India, and it asks why and how such a situation has come about, says Srinivasan. In Tamil Nadu, the practice of eliminating daughters is more recent, and not as severe as in northern India – it is a state that sits between the northern and southern Indian states and has implemented programs to prevent the practice. And, although it may seem economic or socio-cultural at first glance, Srinivasan says it is a much deeper issue.

Sharada Srinivasan

A professor of International Development Studies in the Faculty of Liberal Arts & Professional Studies, Srinivasan examines the issue from the context of women’s lives, unraveling the causes of daughter elimination and the mechanisms which create and sustain an environment in which this is imaginable. Reflecting on the way ahead, the book concludes that even as public policies can and should play a decisive role in reversing the immediate outcomes in favour of daughters, an environment favourable to daughters will need fundamental changes in social norms, attitudes and policies of governments and non-governmental organizations.

The launch is sponsored by the Office of the Dean, Faculty of Liberal Arts & Professional Studies, International Development Studies, the Harriet Tubman Institute for Research on the Global Migration of African Peoples, the Alliance Against Modern Slavery and the 91��ɫ Bookstore.

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On Monday, Oct. 17, Jeffrey Simpson (right), The Globe and Mail's award-winning national affairs columnist, will be the keynote speaker at the official launch of Tax Expenditures: State of the Art, a new book edited by Osgoode Professors Lisa Philipps, Neil Brooks and Jinyan Li. He will introduce the book, which presents recent research on tax expenditures and their role in the fiscal and public policy systems of the 34 countries that make up the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD).

Within the pages of Tax Expenditures: State of the Art, contributors from the Canada, United States, Australia and England offer new data and interdisciplinary perspectives on the definition, distributional effects and politics of tax expenditures, and the use of tax expenditures to advance policy agendas relating to the environment, housing, health and fitness, and retirement savings.

The event, which is free and open to the University community, will take place from 12:30 to 2pm in 1002 Osgoode Hall Law School, Ignat Kaneff Building. A light lunch will be served. To help with planning, organizers request that you RSVP by e-mail to Inbal Marcovitch, research coordinator, Osgoode Hall Law School.

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Join Professor William Gage, associate dean of research & innovation in the Faculty of Health (FoH) at 91��ɫ, and Professor Andrew Eckford of 91��ɫ’s Department of Computer Science & Engineering in the Faculty of Science & Engineering (FSE), for the launch of the eHealth Alliance brown bag lecture series. They will discuss the importance of accelerometers in studying the walking behaviour and interactions of participants in their natural environment.

Right: William Gage

The first eHealth Alliance lecture, “Wireless Accelerometers to Monitor Walking Activity and Behaviour”, will take place Thursday, Oct. 20, from 3 to 4pm at 402 Health, Nursing & Environmental Studies Building (HNES), Keele campus.

Gage and Eckford will also look at why these walking measurements are changing how scientists understand the activity levels of healthy individuals, and importantly, how illness and injury alter activity levels.

“We will describe the development our sensor system and contrast this development with other sensor systems in the literature; we will focus the application of our measurement system with healthy individuals, patients with stroke and patients with knee replacement,” says Gage, also a professor in the School of Kinesiology & Health Science, where he teaches a graduate level course in biomechanics and neuromuscular control of posture and gait.

Left: Andrew Eckford

Gage holds scientific appointments as an associate scientist in the Centre for Stroke Recovery at Sunnybrook Health Science Centre and as a scientist at Toronto Rehabilitation Institute. He is particularly interested in how balance and walking are affected by age, by joint disease, such as arthritis, and by stroke.

A graduate of the Royal Military College of Canada and the University of Toronto, Eckford has written many papers on wireless networking and has research interests in wearable wireless networks, as well as signal processing for biomechanics. He also holds an adjunct professorship at the University of Toronto.

The eHealth Alliance came about after some 30 faculty members from the School of Health Policy & Management, FoH, and the Department of Computer Science & Engineering, FSE, got together. They discussed the need for building a 91��ɫ alliance in e-health that would bring the two Faculties together with relevant 91��ɫ and external partners, such as industry leaders, 91��ɫ Region hospitals and the Central LHIN - Local Health Integration Network, says Professor Serban Dinca, undergraduate program director, coordinator of the Health Informatics Certificate in the School of Health Policy & Management and eHealth Alliance chair.

“The eHealth Alliance lecture series is the first step in coagulating the alliance and making connections with the industry,” says Dinca.

See the following list for upcoming eHealth Alliance lecture presenters:

• Nov. 17 - Serban Dinca, undergraduate program director and coordinator of the Health Informatics Certificate in the School of Health Policy & Management, from 3 to 4pm at 402 HNES Building
• Dec. 15 - Amir Asif, chair of the Department of Computer Science & Engineering, from 3 to 4pm at 3033 Computer Science & Engineering Building
• Jan. 19 - Harvey Skinner, dean of the Faculty of Health, from 3 to 4pm at 402 HNES Building
• Feb. 16 - Professor Farah Ahmad of the School of Health Policy & Management, from 3 to 4pm at 402 HNES Building

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Notable Canadian environmental poets , and are the keynote speakers for the public forum, which will take place Friday, Oct. 21, from 6 to 8pm, at the Gladstone Hotel, North Ballroom, 1415 Queen St. W., Toronto. The event is free and open to the public, but space is limited.

Right: Brian Bartlett

Each of the authors will read from their work and discuss the socio-political responsibility of writers in modern, ecologically precarious times during the public forum. Bartlett is the author of five collections of poetry, including The Watchmaker’s Table, as well as Wanting the Day: Selected Poems, which won the 2004 Atlantic Poetry Prize. Ruffo, whose work is influenced by his Ojibwe heritage, is the author of At Geronimo’s Grave and Grey Owl: The Mystery of Archie Belaney. He has also penned plays, works of nonfiction and was the writer and director for the film, A Windigo Tale, which won best picture at the American Indian Film Festival last year in San Francisco.

Wong's work looks at the relations among contemporary poetics, social justice, ecology and decolonization. She is the author of poetry collections Forage and Monkeypuzzle and co-author of Sybil Unrest.

The academic conference will be held the next day on Saturday, Oct. 22 at the Gladstone Hotel, from 9am to 7:30pm. Paid registration for the conference is required before Oct. 14. Although admission for 91��ɫ students is free, they still must register in advance.

Left: Rita Wong

The conference will feature scholarly discussions and include diverse panels of academics, graduate students and writers presenting their own work on topics, such as ecopoetics, environmental literatures, indigenous politics, writing and more. Molly Wallace of Queen’s University will offer the closing keynote address, “Averting Environmental Catastrophe in Time: Speculations on Temporality, Risk and Representation”.

Some of the questions the event will probe include: How do literary works – poetry, fiction, creative nonfiction – make a unique contribution to Canadians’ understanding of, and responses to, environmental issues? How does the history of Canadian literature suggest a history of environmental activism, and vice versa? Why does poetry matter for nature? And, how does fiction incite and influence actions in the more-than-human world?

Environmental literatures engage the world differently than do environmental policies and ecopoetry embodies and inspires different modes of action, says FES Professor Catriona Sandilands, Canada Research Chair in Sustainability & Culture and the event’s co-organizer with Ella Soper, FES postdoctoral Fellow.

Right: Armand Garnet Ruffo

The question then becomes, says Sandilands, what does this reflection and action add to environmental politics in Canada? How, for example, do indigenous peoples’ struggles over the materiality and meaning of land suggest different kinds of environmental stories to underpin an ecological public culture? How can a regional or national ecopolitics benefit from closer attention to diasporic literatures? How are ecological literatures and politics jointly embedded in globalizing relations of race, gender, class, colonialism, sexuality and ability?

Writing workshops will take place Sunday, Oct. 23 at the Gladstone Hotel, from 9:30 to 11:30am. It will be a day of hands-on writing activities led by Bartlett, Ruffo and Wong, as well as FES doctoral candidate Amanda Di Battista. At the workshops, participants will be encouraged to create their own pieces of poetry or prose that might contribute to a politics of voice locally, nationally and/or globally. Participation is included in advance conference registration or contact Green Worlds for alternate arrangements.

The event is sponsored by 91��ɫ’s Sustainable Writing Laboratory and the Faculty of Environmental Studies with the support of the Social Sciences & Humanities Research Council of Canada.

For more information, for a full schedule of events, or to register, e-mail grnwrlds@yorku.ca.

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Titled "Living in 91��ɫ Region: Our Community Check-up", the report presents context indicators for 12 issue areas and summarizes the opinions of more than 1,000 91��ɫ Region residents who attended focus groups and completed an online survey between March and June 2011. The project is part of a national initiative covering 22 Canadian communities.

The report provides baseline indicators and resident perceptions of how well the region's communities are faring in key quality of life areas such as learning, health, housing and the environment. It emphasizes the importance of connections in an area encompassing some 1,756 square kilometres of rural, forested and urban landscape and concludes that 91��ɫ Region is a healthy community.

“91��ɫ has been pleased to be part of this important project in 91��ɫ Region,” said Robert Haché, vice-president research & innovation at 91��ɫ. “This report will provide a baseline against which our knowledge mobilization and social innovation initiatives can be measured. We will now have the ability to describe the difference that research is making in the lives of our local communities.”

Staff from 91��ɫ's KMb Unit served on the project steering committee to support the strategic and operational objectives of the report. David Dewitt, former assistant vice-president research, served as the University's representative on the project's leadership council, which provided strategic oversight around the development, rollout and sustainability of the project. 91��ɫ alumna Marie Murnaghan (PhD '10) contributed to the project by seeking and analyzing data in the 12 indicator areas.

“This report, based on research and data as well as the experiences and voices of 91��ɫ Region residents, holds great potential in mobilizing action around the human services provision,” said Michael Johnny, 91��ɫ's knowledge mobilization manager. “The KMb Unit at 91��ɫ will continue to work with leaders and decision makers, using this report, to help support informed decision making on important issues to all residents of 91��ɫ Region.”

The report found that 91��ɫ Region residents have great pride in their communities, whether they are long-time residents or newcomers, but years of sustained growth – and the prospect of much more to come in the future – have created pressures in two key areas that require urgent attention.

The first area, subtitled Getting Around, highlights that infrastructure and services – and most importantly public transit – must keep pace with growth so people are able to move conveniently and efficiently within 91��ɫ Region and connect to neighbouring communities.

The second priority, subtitled Housing, asserts that there be more affordable choices and supports for people in emergency situations.

To these two priority issues the report adds a third that speaks of the need to build awareness and to better communicate 91��ɫ Region’s existing strengths. The issue, subtitled Navigating Existing Resources, highlights the importance of ensuring that people know what services and programs already exist in the region and how to access them.

The Living in 91��ɫ Region Vital Signs report is part of the Vital Signs national initiative comprised of annual community check-ups that are conducted by 22 community foundations across Canada to measure the vitality of communities. The project received funding from the Ontario Trillium Foundation.

The full report can be downloaded from the �ɱ�������ٱ�.��

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